Modelling Impacts of Urban Freight Terminal Location Decisions

This paper presents the results of research into the evaluation of alternative scenarios for freight terminal location in an urban area in Australia. The research combines the use of a strategic transport model for overall freight demand forecasting, with cost assessment of the specific impacts of locating future terminals in selected areas. Outputs of the model were used to evaluate the impacts of urban freight terminal location decisions on all traffic in the road network. The work includes freight trip generation, using strategic transport modelling software (VISUM) to forecast future patterns of urban freight flows, calibration of the model, and option testing using a case-study in South East Queensland to predict the transport cost impacts of several locations for intermodal terminals.